It was safe to say that Park Jimin was the boy every girl’s parents dreamed of.

 

He was good looking, polite, respectful and would graduate in a year with his degree in business (Honours in Arts) from an excellent university in Seoul. He worked part time at the local general store. He didn’t drink that much and had almost coughed a lung out the only time he’d tried a smoke. He brought home his dates with fifteen minutes to curfew and blushed and stuttered before daring to kiss her chastely on the cheek after the first date.

 

It wasn’t that Jimin was naïve, but it was just that he was just far too honourable.

 

His friends about his unnecessary need to be responsible and proper. His teachers found his lack of smarminess a relief and beamed at him everyday. Girls thought he was charming, and handsome and so very good at everything. Jim liked life, he enjoyed being alive; he didn’t see the point of spending his time being the kind of person that would cause problems or have to suffer them.

 

His father liked that he was willing to go fishing with him sometimes. His mother liked that Jimin was never too embarrassed to hug her back, keen to help her and perfectly cheeky and charming to her friends. His brother liked that he would help him with homework and that he let him have more food when their mom wasn’t looking.

 

Jimin would help strangers cross the road. He would assist a short child trying to reach a book. He would carry his teachers’ bags when they were loaded with term papers. He wouldn’t even try and hesitate before doing a friend a favour: helping them with a paper or picking them up late after a particularly drunken night.

 

Everyone liked Jimin.

 

It was difficult not to.

 

—///—

 

The first time they met, Jimin didn’t notice her.

 

He was with Jin, listening to his friend very enthusiastically narrate a story he had actually heard (four times), but was in far too good a mood to stop the overdramatic music magazine intern.

 

“…and BAM! The copier exploded. It was ing brilliant, Jimin. Oh, . And not a single one of those absolute morons knew it was me! You know what the best part is? No intern has to make copies for a very long time!”

 

Jimin was supposed to be studying, but he laughed anyway. Not because the story was still particularly funny, but because this time Jin’s flailing arms had lost hit his newest girlfriend, who was an aspiring Fashion major in his year.

 

Solbi looked a little irritated at almost being backhanded by her boyfriend, but her face smoother over (even though Jimin noticed she shrugged off Jin’s welcoming arms) as she nodded a hello to him and smiled. Jimin greeted back and politely gave them their privacy, focusing on the business case ahead of him, tuning out their conversation to the best of his ability.

 

“I know, but I wanted to…”

 

“…almost hit me, you …”

 

“…about the other day…”

 

“…again…for goodness’ sake…”

 

“…funny!”

 

“…already heard it about two dozen times!”

 

The two of them were glaring at each other, but Jimin knew it wasn't worth taking seriously. They fought all the time and a part of him wondered whether it was better that way, fighting for most of the time they had together. Maybe it was healthier, to have it out about the small irksome things than just bottle them up and store them.

 

But then again, he'd never had a problem with his old girlfriend and that hadn't kept her from dumping him and leaving for Tokyo.

 

He exhaled; his pen had been pressed too hard onto the paper. He’d have to find a new sheet.

 

“How’s it going, then, Jimin?” Solbi asked him, finally. She was asking to be courteous, he knew, because her fingers were fidgeting on the strap of the overly large bag most girls brought around. She and her boyfriend had that restlessness in common: Jin had doodled over two of his book cover (which now read ChimChim wants to kiss TaeTae while Mrs. Justin Seagull and I want TaeTae’s Gucci stuffs :( because Jin was immature like that); he had also broke three pens, eaten the Snickers in his pocket and half of the breakfast bar Jimin carried and had just finished making a house of Sour Patch Kids on the table.

 

“It’s alright. Busy, y’know.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” she glanced at her watch quickly, running a hand through her long hair before looking around, forehead creased.

 

Jin started eating the mural of Sour Patch Kids, starting with the orange-coloured ones. “Waiting for someone, babe?”

 

“Yeah, I have an assignment for Design with this girl. She’s a computer major, so I thought she’d be a good pick, but I think she’s avoiding me.”

 

“Why would you think that?”

 

His girlfriend looked out at the thought of her partner. “I don't know. She seemed nice, but she keeps forgetting when we’re supposed to meet and doesn't save my number or text back.”

 

“Maybe she's just crazy,” Jin suggested in his usual sensitive way, now sweeping the green Sour Patch Kids that had made the roof into his hand throwing them into his open mouth.

 

“She didn't seem like it. She keeps apologising a lot, most es don't do that. I’m wondering if she’s just senseless.”

 

“She could be a stoner,” Jin wriggled his eyebrows and the pinched his face into one of complete idiotic lunacy, tongue stuck out and eyes droopy. Jimin bit back a laugh and Solbi rolled her eyes.

 

“Don’t be — oh. There she is. Thank goodness,” she waved her arms at someone on the other end of the library. Whoever she was trying to signal to obviously couldn't see or didn't respond, because she made an exasperated noise.

 

“What is that moron doing? Honestly. She looks like she’s wandered in by mistake.”

 

“Was she following the carpeting?” Jin asked, incredulous but extremely entertained.

 

“I have no clue. She does that, all the freaking time. I’m going to go grab her before she wanders out. See you later. Bye, Jimin.”

 

“Bye, Solbi.”

 

“I think you were spot on with the senseless theory, babe,” Jin called out behind her.

 

Jimin’s gaze followed her back to the other end of the student lounge room, where she grabbed a girl by the elbow and dragged her out. The girl looked slightly taken aback and clutched her backpack to herself, the ends of her braid whipping her in her own face as she was swung around.

 

“Hey, those computer major birds look like they've forgotten what the world looks like outside their compile processes.”

 

“That’s rude.”

 

“Still, you got to admit, barring some of those fit geek girls and the guys we played basketball with the other day, the faculty is a little weird.”

 

“Isn’t Yoongi doing a class in computer programming?”

 

“Case in point!” Jin exclaimed, bringing his palm down on the table and scattering the rest of the Sour Patch Kids house.

 

Because it was a little funny to imagine the ultra cool Min Yoongi with his constantly changing hair colour and cigarettes and general I’m an artist attitude as a pale asocial bookworm, Jimin couldn't help but laugh.

 

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” he warned, even though he was still smiling as he started scribbling on a fresh page.

 

Jin snorted, now tossing Sour Patch Kids in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. He wasn't very good at this, and the candy would bounce off his face and land on Jimin’s books and hair.

 

“I reckon I could take Yoongi,” Jin announced with an overdramatic karate chop. “He ain’t gonna be able to take a damn thing from me!” He said the last part of the sentence in a terrible Italian accent, making Jimin’s lips quirk.

 

Although Yoongi might seemed smaller than Jin, Jimin knew that out of all his friends, Yoongi would probably be the one to hold his own in a fist fight. Not the silly, half serious ones that most boys seem to enjoy to state their right to the last can of coke in the vending machine, but an actual one, with broke noses and black eyes instead of tickling and glomming till immobile.

 

Jin seemed to remember Yoongi’s brief stint in the boxing club too, and added fairly, “Well, maybe if Jungkook held him down, I’d be able to get him.”

 

“Not a chance. He wouldn't want to jeopardise his plan of doing lamb skewers business with Yoongi.” Jimin replied as he thought briefly. “If you sat on him, you’d be able to get him. He wouldn’t be able to move a single muscle.”

 

Jin hit the back of Jimin’s head after he realised what his friend was implying. “Watch it, you punk!”

 

—///—

 

The second time they met, Jimin had just been abandoned halfway through a date.

 

He was painfully aware that it was the second time one of his dates had gotten a phonetical and then claimed she had to leave due to unavoidable circumstances.

 

Then she had asked for a ride.

 

And because Jimin was an idiot and she really was a very pretty girl, he shrugged and agreed.

 

She lived near the college library, and Jimin needed to find some books for his paper on Sophocles anyway. Besides, the least he could do was part on fairly amicable terms. There was no point offending a girl of just not being able to enjoy his company.

 

Not that she had tried very hard. She had led a monologue about why she thought popular music was trash (“I mean, how is it that any of those horrid men get to get laid by all these girls and then write about it in the most horrible way and then have it happen again?”) and then criticised his decision to get past as opposed to her grilled salmon. Whenever Jimin spoke, her eyes would glaze over or she would be texting somebody.

 

“Bye Jimin, I’m really sorry I had to run out like this!”

 

“Yeah, it’s okay. See you around.”

 

This was the last time he would let Hoseok find him a girl, Jimin decided firmly, waving halfheartedly to Chaerin or Chaeryong or Chaeson.

 

“Of course,” she yelled back, hurrying away even as she beamed at him over her shoulder.

 

He didn't even really know her name.

 

“Chaeyoung.”

 

He looked sheepishly towards the girl who had spoken. “Sorry?”

 

“You forgot her name, didn't you?”

 

“I knew it starts with Chae,” he offered weakly.

 

The girl raised her eyebrows at him before tilting her head up and blowing out a smoke circle. She didn't look like the smoking type, who Jimin always assumed (in a manner that he knew was slightly immature and really just propagating a stereotype) wore a lot of black or leather. Yoongi himself fit into the former category, with an occasional foray into the second.

 

This girl wore black trousers and a green t-shirt with blue sneakers. She looked like any other uni student on campus, dressed like she was late for her first lecture with lack of sleep evident in her face. Remarkable ordinary looking, mousy brown hair in a braid, dark brown eyes covered by glasses.

 

“If it makes you feel any better,” the girl said, half smiling as she brought her cigarette to again. “She never dates anyone seriously. Keeps meeting boys and then ditching them when her ex boyfriend calls. She’s going to meet him near the Science building and they’ll have in his car.”

 

Jimin stared at her, spluttering a little. “What?”

 

“She lives accrues the hall from me, same dorm room," the girl confided, leaning comfortably against the grey stone of the library’s exterior. “You cant honestly blame her. She tries to move on, but it doesn't go well."

 

“What?” Jimin said again.

 

“Namjoon is the bad boy type, y’know. I reckon you're too nice for her. She’s into the type. Likes to get her heart broke. Serious psychological problem.”

 

Of course, he had to date the girl mooning about her old boyfriend despite his evident lack of respect for her.

 

“Do girls really like that, though?” Jimin wondered aloud, his forehead creasing as he tried to reason out why that sort of emotional ery would be attractive.

 

“Don’t know, do I? Can’t see any other girl I know taking that sort of from a boy. Most of them like the faithful kind, like you probably.”

 

“How would you know if I’m faithful?”

 

She barked out an incredulous laugh before she dropped her cigarette to the ground and crushed it under her heel. “Seriously? You dropped Chaeyoung home after she ditched your date. You’re wearing a plaid shirt, and it’s fully buttoned up. You’re either one of them American woodcutters or a closet e.”

 

“It’s a bit chilly," Jimin said defensively, shoving his hands into his pockets and feeling insecure as his red ears are probably visible even to a person a mile away from them.

 

She grinned, bending down to pick up the of her cigarette and flicking it into one of the many bins that were on campus. “Whatever you say.”

 

“You shouldn’t throw cigarette butts into the trash can. It could cause a fire.”

 

Ah, way to go, Park, a voice in his had said sarcastically.

 

"I stubbed it out. It’s alright.” She crossed her arms across her chest and looked at him, mildly amused. “Well, I best get back to work. I’ve been on break for a while.”

 

“Where do you work?”

 

His question came out of his mouth before he could help himself and she looked a little taken aback.

 

“At the library,” she said slowly, forehead creasing. “I’ve seen you around a fair bit here. You sit near the window and huddle into the corner if you think someone is going to disturb you.”

 

“You’ve seen me?” Jimin repeated, eyeing the girl skeptically. She didn't look particularly familiar. Not to mention that her rather odd way of reciting the behaviour of people she didn't know made him suspicious. She could easily be one of the wallflowers who prey on college students and remember their schedules so she could sell the information to a raving revenge obsessed lunatic or a potential murderer.

 

Those girls always died after selling their information. Generally when on a trip to spend their gains on something like pot or cheap jewellery.

 

Jimin took a moment to himself for even thinking such a ridiculous thought.

 

“I’ve checked out books for you,” she told him, as if aware that he was pinning her as a potentially dead pothead.

 

“Oh,” Jimin said, the back of his neck heating up uncomfortable, feeling like an of the worst kind. “Sorry, I didn’t…”

 

“S’okay. I’m clarifying so you don't think I’ve been spying on you or anything. I have a rather dull job. You just tend to stare at the people after a while.”

 

“No, I…er. What’s your name?”

 

“Dohee. I know who you are, Park Jimin. You have to return a book in two days.”

 

“You remember everyone who’s checked out a book?” he asked, impressed.

 

“Not many people come to the library. The internet is a marvellous thing,” she looked at the battered man’s watch on her wrist and frowned. “I have to get back.”

 

“Oh, I, er, I’m going to the library too.”

 

“Good on you,” she said vaguely, taking out her phone and walking past him. Jimin squinted at her back, puzzled for a moment before following her up the stairs into the large library.

 

He took what was apparently his usual place, realised that from the spot he had a direct view of the librarian’s desk. Dohee sat there, resting he head on one hand as she spoke to a boy with three books and no library pass.

 

She had a clear view of him, and he’d never actually noticed her.

 

He kept looking up to glance at her, almost absent-mindedly and then in astonishment when he saw Yoongi talking to her. He was leaning over the counter and had his usual unimpressed expression on his face as Dohee listened, hands behind her head, tilting her chair back so it was balancing on the two rear legs.

 

How could she be acquainted to one of his closest friends and still a stranger? She had to be invited to one of the many parties Yoongi worked at, and Jimin was one of the only ones sober enough to see everyone and actually talk to them at those.

 

They probably had a class together or something, he thought, watching as she steadied her chair and nodded at Yoongi, typing something on her phone as he spoke. He gave her a curt nod and flicked her on her slightly large forehead, making her scrunch her nose up with annoyance. Yoongi turned around, his dark eyes sweeping across the library before zooming in on Jimin, making him half smile in greeting and walk over, hands in his jacket pockets and long lazy strides.

 

Jimin sometimes compared Yoongi to a large, lazy cat in his had. It wasn’t something he’d say out loud, but the idea of the self proclaimed bad boy as a feline amused him. He had a lot of characteristics he shared with the species, including the effortlessly languid grace, the vanity, the laziness…not to mention the excessive grooming.

 

“How’s it going?” Yoongi said, drawing up a chair and falling into it neatly. “Thought you’d still on your date with that girl…what’s her name? Chaerin?”

 

“Chaeyoung,” Jimin said, rubbing his nose he caught Dohee’s eyes. She couldn’t hear them from all the way there, could she?

 

“Ah, riiiight,” Yoongi drawled, bringing his hands half a foot away from his chest and making lewd squeezing gestures. “Dohee.”

 

Jimin tried not to let his ears heat up.

 

“Shut up,” he hissed, holding up a book to hide his face, peeking over it as his friend and then Dohee, who had propped her feet onto her counter.

 

Yoongi laughed. “Alright, but seriously, what happened? Hoseok said you two planned to spend the day together.”

 

Jimin put his book down and sighed. “She got phoned halfway through lunch, and said she had to leave. So I dropped her off and came here. Except apparently she was called by her ex boyfriend and they’re going to be having in his car near the Science block.”

 

“Oh, that’s , dude. What a .”

 

“It’s okay. It’s not like we had much in common to begin with.”

 

“Hoseok’s girls are always awful. Don’t take it personally,” Yoongi took the pencil he usually kept behind his ear (occasionally replaced by an unlit cigarette) and started sliding the the tip of it across the last page in Jimin’s notebook.

 

“So, how do you know her?” Jimin asked, now used to his friends treating his possessions like public property. His eyes slid to the girl in question, still staring into space.

 

“Oh, she made a pass at me first year and got offended when I called her by the wrong name.”

 

“Dohee?”

 

“Who? Oh, I thought you meant Chaeyoung. Nah, Dohee’s my lab partner. She’s alright. Always has a cigarette, think she’s a little bonkers though. Doesn’t get out much. She says she stays in with her fern in her room, who — get this — she calls Jack.”

 

Jimin processed this new information, and tried not to smile before changing the subject.

 

“So you dated her before me?”

 

“Dohee? You’re dating Dohee?”

 

“No, Chaeyoung.”

 

“Oh. No, dude. She’s nice and all, seemed really into me but I’ve heard she’s loony over her ex. Everyone knows that . Not including you, clearly.”

 

“Yeah, thanks for the heads up, by the way, you prat.”

 

“I only heard about it today, can’t blame me. Hey, wait. Who told you she’s having with her ex now?”

 

Jimin jerked his head towards Dohee. “She did. She was outside the library when Chaeyoung ran off. I have her to thank for being a better human being than you people. I can’t believe you knew, Hoseok knew…”

 

“Well I reckon Hoseok was running out of girls willing to talk to him long enough to set you up. The was the eighth, right?”

 

“Sixth.” Jimin sounded a bit too defensive even to his own ears. “The third one didn’t show.”

 

“Eh, whatever. You must be a date. The last couple birds you went out with aren't what you call…selective.”

 

“Classy, Yoongi. Very classy.”

 

“Say what you like, dude. Jungkook reckons you’ve lost your touch.”

 

“Does he.”

 

“Jin’s betting on problems…down there, y’know?”

 

Jimin responded to this by spluttering and gripping the large tome of a book he was reading tight enough to turn his knuckles white before holding it up to shield his face. His friend only smirked, pushing his notebook away and tucking his pencil back behind his ear, going on without a trace of embarrassment.

 

“Taehyung’s wagering that you still miss Seulgi.”

 

Jimin stiffened at the mention of his old girlfriend’s name. It still brought up the involuntary and and dull hollow throb that echoed inside him, but in the last five months, he’d built up enough stability to not storm out to the nearest club.

 

“Did he now,” he deadpanned, keeping his tone devoid of any expression.

 

Yoongi looked at him with an unreadable look on his face, face as blank as ever. Girls claimed that his eyes were as liquid and deep as his voice, mirroring what he was thinking. The look of perpetual misunderstood suffering that suited him very well; from his artistically messy hair to the standard block coloured shirts with well fitted jeans and the same pair of soft leather boots or sometimes sneakers — he looked like the pained artistic genius he probably was.

 

But Jimin had known Yoongi for a long time now and he still couldn't read his eyes, specially if they were directed at him.

 

“I’d say I agree, but I guess it’s not really any of our freaking business.”

 

“You’re right. It’s not.”

 

“Alright, then.” Yoongi leaned back in his chair, tapping a rhythm out on the table that drew a few cross looks from the other people in the library.

 

Jimin swallowed, his throat suddenly felt dry and the previously comfortable warmth of the library felt stifling. He put his book down and scrambled to change the subject because Yoongi wouldn't going to; it was typically his style to let the awkwardness swell until Jimin couldn't bear it and confessed how he felt about Seulgi and what she had said before walking out of their shared apartment. His gaze felt on Yoongi’s doodle and he pointed at it.

 

“Who’s that?”

 

The rough sketch was of a profile, blurry around the actual facial features, but with thin wire glasses and a particularly nice mouth, but comically upturned nose. Strands of hair fell from a very untidy braid to rest against the cheek and curved along the ear with multiple earrings.

 

“Dohee. That’s how I see her most of the time, sitting next to her, y’know.”

 

“Oh,” Jimin stared at the ear, which had (slightly insultingly) been given the most attention. Everything else was in careless , but the ear was shaded in and each earring drawn neatly. “I met her properly for the first time. Ever. She’s the librarian, but I found out her name just today.”

 

Yoongi didn’t seem as appalled or taken aback as Jimin had felt. “So? It’s a big campus, a lot of people.”

 

“I never met her through you, either.”

 

“She doesn’t go to college parties, not too many friends. She’s a little loony, you won’t have much in common. She’s in a few of Jungkook’s electives too.”

 

“But I should have at least seen her once then.”

 

“I don’t know, dude. She isn’t the kind of girl you really notice.”

 

That seemed unfair, Jimin thought, watching Dohee almost doze off and then snapping her head up as she woke herself up.

 

After a while, Yoongi would convince his roommate to stop studying and go for a walk. He would agree, because he didn’t see the point of being difficult. Hose would meet up with them, and between making sure the boy didn’t strip in the pub and refusing the drinks being pressed onto him, Jimin would forget about the strange librarian.

 

Shin Dohee would close the library up and go home to her potted fern. She would listen to Chaeyoung about Namjoon and Jimin and heartache, then study for an upcoming test before falling asleep at her desk. She would sleep like the dead, unaware that Park Jimin intended to be her friend, and that she would soon never be the forgettable girl again.